Nuclear Health Hazards

Nuclear health hazards Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen F1NuclearHealthHazards 20161 Nuclear health hazards summary Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen member of the Nuclear Consulting Group July 2016 [email protected] Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Dr Ian Fairlie for reviewing the radiological part of this report and for his suggestions, Angelo Baracca for his suggestions, and Stephen Thomas and John Busby for their comments. The author notes that this report does not necessarily reflect their opinion. The author would like to thank Mali Lightfoot, Executive Director of the Helen Caldicott Foundation, for her valuable suggestions and comments. Errors are the responsibility of the author. F1NuclearHealthHazards 2 Summary Widely divergent views exist on the health hazards posed by nuclear power. This study assesses a number of reports from the nuclear industry on this issue, and balances the official statements against empirical evidence, scientific logic and basic natural laws. Political, military and economic aspects are not addressed although these certainly underlie the differences. Generation of man-made radioactivity A unique feature of nuclear power is the generation of human-made radioactivity. The amount leaving the reactor in spent fuel and other materials is a billion times greater than what enters the reactor in the fresh nuclear fuel. During the past 60 years, civil nuclear power has generated some 11 million times more anthropogenic radioactivity than was released by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in 1945. This amount is still present in the human environment, at countless sites, and it is still rising at a current rate of about 300 000 bomb equivalents a year. Dispersion of natural and human-made radioactivity A nuclear power plant is not a stand-alone system: a sequence of industrial processes is required to extract uranium ore from the earth’s crust, and to fabricate nuclear fuel from it that can be used in nuclear reactors. Another, larger, series of industrial processes is required to manage the radioactive waste safely. Jointly these processes are called the nuclear process chain; in fact the nuclear system may be the most complex energy system ever designed. When discussing the benefits and adverse effects of nuclear power the complete nuclear process chain should be taken into account. Large masses of naturally-occurring radioactive materials are mobilised into the biosphere during the mining of uranium ores, especially radon and thoron gases. Massive amounts of human-made radioactive materials are routinely released during the normal operation of nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants. In addition to routine discharges, radioactive materials are dispersed as a result of technical failures and accidents. Radioactive effluents include gases, vapours, aerosols, dusts, particulate matter, and radionuclides dissolved in aqueous liquids, including very large volumes of water which is itself radioactive (tritiated water). In addition solid radioactive materials end up in the environment, such as scrap and rubble. Dispersion may also occur from the incineration of radioactive waste, the intentional or unintentional burning of materials contaminated by radionuclides for heating or cooking, and by forest fires in contaminated areas. Biomedical aspects of radioactive contamination Nuclear radiation strongly interacts with cellular matter. Radiation destroys or modifies biomolecules such as DNA, which may cause harmful effects in an organism. Alpha and beta radiation can be blocked by clothing and skin and therefore may seem relatively harmless. However, alpha and beta-emitting radionuclides are extremely dangerous inside the human body, for living cells are not protected by the skin or clothing. The alpha and beta rays cause a large number of damaged biomolecules inside living cells. Moreover, several radionuclides accumulate in specific organs causing locally high radiation doses. Contamination by radioactive materials involves more than exposure to radiation alone. In addition to the radiation, chemical factors are important in judging the hazards of radioactive substances inside the body, such as: • biochemical properties of the radioisotope itself and of its decay products • biochemical reactions initiated by the ionizing radiation of the radioactive decay, via primary and secondary ions • biochemical reactions initiated by the energy transfer of the recoil and of the secondary electrons. F1NuclearHealthHazards 3 Many radionuclides released into the environment enter the food chain and drinking water and as a result people in the contaminated areas are internally exposed to those radionuclides for prolonged periods. In addition people are exposed to skin doses and by breathing radioactive gases and particulate matter. Health effects caused by prolonged exposure to a gamut of radionuclides are not investigated. What are the synergistic biomedical effects? The classical radiologic models discern deterministic (also called non-stochastic) effects and stochastic (also called probabilistic) effects. The former occur after exposure to extremely high doses of radiation and become evident within hours to weeks (ARS: Acute Radiation Syndrome), the latter are caused by lower doses and can have incubation periods of years to decades. Relatively recent studies have proven the existence of ‘non-targeted’ and ‘delayed’ radiation effects. These effects had probably been observed in earlier studies but had gone unrecognised as they fell outside the then accepted paradigm of radiation effects. The observed phenomena pose many fundamental questions to be answered and will result in a paradigm shift in the understanding of radiation biology. Observed health effects Due to the long incubation periods it may take years before stochastic health effects become observable. In the years since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 a great variety of diseases have been reported in the contaminated areas in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia: cancers and non-cancer diseases, lethal and non-lethal diseases, such as: – multimorbity classified as radiation-induced premature senescence – cancers and leukaemia – thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases – damage to nervous system, mental disorders – heart and circulatory diseases – infant mortality, stillbirths, low birth-weight – congenital malformations – endocrinal and metabolic illnesses – diabetes – miscarriages and pregnancy terminations – genetic damage, hereditary disorders and diseases – teratogenic damage, such as: anencephaly, open spine, cleft lip/palette, polydactylia, muscular atrophy of limbs, Down’s syndrome. – chromosomal damage – radiation-induced cataracts – vascular vegetative dystony (the “new Chernobyl syndrome”) Epidemiological studies in Germany and France proved a relationship between the increased incidence of childhood cancers and leukemia and the living proximity of the childern’s homes (for childern under 5 years old) to normally operating nuclear power plants. These effects cannot be explained by the radiological models applied by the nuclear industry. Limitations of the current radiological models The radiological models used by the nuclear industry are based on the effects of gamma- and X-ray radiation from sources outside the human body. UNSCEAR states: “The single most informative set of data on whole- body radiation exposure comes from studies of the survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan in 1945. The atomic bombing exposures were predominantly high-dose-rate gamma radiation with a small contribution of neutrons.” The models are based on studies that started about five years after the atomic bombings, so the deaths during these first five years are not counted. What was the original purpose of these 60-year-old models? To estimate the acute radiological risks for F1NuclearHealthHazards 4 military personnel in the Cold War with the threat of nuclear weapons during the 1940s and 1950s, at a time no civil nuclear power plants existed? Or to estimate the health hazards for millions of people in 21st century posed by chronic exposure to a vast number of radionuclides discharged by hundreds of civil nuclear power plants over the course of decades? The methodology and scope of these studies do not comply with present scientific views and insights that are based on the vast amounts of emprirical data that became available during the past decades. Epidemiological studies proved that the existing exposure and health risk models are unable to explain the empirical observations, so the models should be revised. During the disasters of Mayak, Chernobyl and Fukushima amounts of radioactivity equivalent to many thousands of exploded Hiroshima bombs have been discharged into the environment. What are the effects if the exposure is chronic as a result of continuous intake (food, water), inhalation of radioactive gases, dust and aerosols? What are the effects of bioaccumulation in the food chain? Like any scientific model the radiological models have their inherent limitations, because a model is by definition a simplication of the reality. In addition a model has also limitations due to the basic assumptions and to the choice of the input parameters. Models are only usable within the boundaries of a well-defined system. How are the radiological system boundaries defined? Entanglement of interests Physically an NPP is part of an intricate network of industrial activities. In turn this technical system is part of a complex of interests, with miltary, political, economic,

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